Sweeney Todd: What Happened Next?
by Katana Kunai
Summary: We all know the story of Benjamin and Lucy Barker, but what happened to Johanna? What happened to the young girl who had run away with Anthony Hope at the tender age of 16? What happened to her and her family? rated T for deaths


We all know the tragic story of Sweeney Todd, though many of us have heard many other stories. Some have said that he was a greedy maniac who sent his victims to their deaths and stole their belongings. Others have heard that he was falsely incarcerated and was driven to madness when he found that his poor wife had been raped by the judge who had sent him away and that she had killed herself while his infant daughter was placed in the custody of the same man. No matter which tale you have heard, they all end the same: his throat was slit by Tobias Ragg.

Yes, we all know the tale of Sweeney Todd and his tragic death. However, no one knows what happened to the rest of his family. No one wondered what happened to Johanna Barker, the daughter of Sweeney Todd.

Johanna Barker had married Anthony Hope and had a beautiful baby boy. Johanna and Anthony had lived their lives happily and died together holding hands and surrounded by family and friends the day before the American Civil War. Their son eventually grew to have a boy of his own. This went on for two more generations. In 1991, the great-great-grandson of Anthony and Johanna Hope, John, and his wife, Johanna gave birth to a baby girl, who they named Sabara, in the country of America where he had gone at the meager age of 20. 4 years later, John left his wife with their 4 year-old daughter behind.

14 years after that, the frail Johanna died of exhaustion. She couldn't take the burden of taking care of a child and working two jobs at the same time even with help.

The funeral was small, since Johanna had no friends at work and she never talked to her husband's family. It was mainly a few colleagues and her children, Sabara and Ben. Ben was now 14 and Sabara the worldly age of 18. After the wake, Johanna's colleagues and even her greedy sister in-law was there at the reading of the will.

"To my sister-in-law, who I am sure is only here because she thinks I have some secret inheritance stashed away, I can assure you that all you will get is my rundown apartment and words I never thought I would ever say. Sabara, please cover your ears. Janice, you are a completely selfish cunt with no sense of sympathy. Go to hell, you goddamned bitch." Neither Sabara nor Janice ever looked more shocked. She never thought her mother would ever say such coarse words. Sabara and Janice had barely gotten out of their stupor when the executor continued.

"To my beloved daughter, Sabara," he began. "I leave to you more than a small rundown apartment and harsh words; I am giving you the contents of my safety deposit box in the Bank of America on Main St."

That was all she had truly written in the will for that was all she truly had to give.

The day after, Sabara left for the Bank of America to get the deposit box. As she looked into it, she saw what looked like a set of keys and a paper that said "186 FLEET STREET."

"I guess this means I'm on my way to London."

Sabara got on the 8:15 am flight to London.

After a seemingly endless plane ride, Sabara reached 186 Fleet St at 7:37 pm. It was a dump to say the least. The boards looked rotted to the point of erosion, and the sign that had said "Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pie Emporium" was all but faded except for the faint outlines of the words.

"This place looks creepy."

She felt a presence there that almost warned them to leave. However, this was the last thing left to her and her brother and they would never leave.

As they entered, they noticed that the little restaurant would have been pretty nice if people bothered to have taken care of it. Unfortunately, no one paid much attention to it while it was in business.

Sabara looked at the shop and the rooms behind the store. The room next to the actual store looked like the ideal living room that was just ignored for, well, almost 200 years. Sabara took a look at the desk in the back right corner.

It had definitely seen better days. The minute Sabara merely tugged on the drawer, the front of it fell off. She waved the dust away from her face and coughed the dust out of her lungs. After the final sneeze, she saw the contents of the drawer, one them being a ratty little book. Sabara pulled it out of the drawer and blew on the cover. The cover had no title, but the words on the last page were what caught her attention.

August 12 1785,

Business has never been better. Thanks to Mr. T, I have enough to last the rest of the week. I knew it was a wonderful idea! Soon, the judge will be dead and Mr. T will be able to give his heart and name to me. It gives me tingles just thinking about it! However, I will have to keep that stupid Lucy away from here. If Mr. T. sees her, he might put two and two together and I'll never have him. Not only that, but he might get angry at me for not telling him the truth.

Anyway, Toby told me he's scared that Mr. T will hurt me somehow and that I was like mother to him. He told me that he would protect me from Mr. T. I also found that I made the mistake of showing Toby his old master's purse. He knows too much. I locked him away in the bake house and taught him how to make the meat pies. He'll find out the truth, eventually, but no one will hear him.

I did the right thing. Soon, he will simply resign to his duties and get to make the meat pies without disgust.

Nellie Lovett

Sabara read through it again and tried to remember where she had heard the name "Nellie Lovett" before. After a minute of guesses and speculation, she decided to explore the building to see what needed renovations. She saw what looked like a little café and around back, she saw two staircases. One led upstairs and the other one down. She decided to head upstairs, first, since it looked like a nice place to start.

She didn't hear the normal creaking one would hear from old stairs, so she assumed someone fixed them in the past two centuries.

She grabbed on the doorknob and felt something grab her hand as she turned the knob. When she opened the door and looked in the drab, dark room, she couldn't help but feel another presence there. It felt sad, pained, and lonely. Sabara could almost cry. However, as she continued to walk through the room, she felt less saddened and more afraid. By the time she got to the single barber's chair in the room, she almost felt as if she should turn back and forget this place existed, but she would not be compelled to leave under any circumstances.

Sabara stepped behind the chair and looked at the photograph frames on the vanity. Apparently, the photo frame plus the body of a 5'7" tall 200 pound woman proved too much weight for the aging wood, for the moment she picked up the frame; she heard a crack beneath her feet.

She fell through the wood and was falling through a chute. Luckily, she landed on her feet. When she got up, she saw what looked like a bake house...this was the bake house Nellie Lovett was talking about.

Sabara couldn't see a thing, so she took a lighter from her pocket and flicked the igniter. The little light it gave showed a giant furnace-like oven. Thinking there was no harm in that, she took out her notepad, tore out a page to light with the lighter, and threw it into the oven, the fire burned as if given new life, giving her the sight look around. She had landed, feet first, in what looked like a dumping ground. To the left of the oven was what appeared to be a giant meat grinder. She looked at the top of the grinder and saw a skeletal human hand sticking out of it. Out of fear, she stepped back and stepped on something. She turned around and saw nothing directly in front of her, but when she looked down, she saw something most disturbing.

Behind in front of her were two skeletons: one looked to be a man, judging by the ratty clothes and the other a woman with even rattier clothes. The man was cradling the woman's head with his head bowed as if begging for forgiveness that would never pass his lover's lips.

As she stepped closer to the skeletons, the oven gate slammed shut. She jolted to the oven to see who was down there with her. Seeing no one, she gave the credit to the slight breeze in the room. After hearing the gate slam open with great force, more force than a breeze could muster, she looked around again. Seeing no one there, she started to feel nervous. Suddenly, she heard footsteps from above.

She ran up the stairs into the shop. Seeing no one, she shrugged her shoulders and went around cleaning up.

After about two hours of cleaning and checking the water supply and swept off the dust and tested the floors, she went to the shower upstairs to clean herself up.

"That was a lovely shower, even though the hot water ran out halfway through," Sabara said after almost two hours in the shower. She stepped into the room she fell through and stepped in front of the mirror, avoiding the hole behind the chair. She was brushing her hair out when she heard what sounded like a man whispering, "Johanna." She turned around and saw no one. She turned back to the mirror with her eyes more to the room behind her than her hair.

She eventually brushed off the voice and thought it was her imagination. As she went into the next room to change into her nightgown, she heard the voice again, this time whispering, "Lucy."

Sabara ran back into the room with her robe on and finally saw the source of the voice. It was a man in what looked like Victorian clothing and had black hair with a shock of gray as if he had seen what no being should ever have seen. He turned to Sabara and she saw that he had sunken eyes as if he never slept and a horrible pallor. She almost thought he was a squatter, until she saw the wall on the other side of the room-through his head.

He was a ghost. Those were the last words she thought before she lost consciousness.

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Katana: So, what do y'all think? Review please?


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